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Great question. I think it goes back to the battle of who is in charge after Osensei died. Tohei or Osensei's son.Thats when i saw the split.I think also the tricky nature of Ki made it hard to desconstruct and teach. I like all forms of aikido and martial arts
and embrace all ways of doing it.Ki does exist I know cuz at times I was a uke for Tohei as a teen and he did stuff I never have experienced with others. I also have had my Ki moments but it doesn;t always happen and i think a longer learning curve to egt it down right....deep bow to all.

Interestingly: When Stan P. interviewed some of the senior Daito Ryu people (I forget who) they referred to it as aikido, much to Mr Pranin's surprise.(When I say it I mean what they were doing, or at least that was the implication)

John Driscoll does an excellent job of correlating Daito ryu and aikido techniques here on Aikiweb. The end result is a very high percentage. Mochizuki laments the fact that Ueshiba pared down the Daito ryu syllabus ... not that he changed it.

There are, after all, only a limited number of ways to bend human anatomy.

But I think most aikidoka would say that aikido is more than the sum of its techniques. Most students of Daito ryu would probably say the same. To truly appreciate both the similarities and the differences in the two arts, I suspect that you would need to have substantial experience in both.

There are, after all, only a limited number of ways to bend human anatomy.

But I think most aikidoka would say that aikido is more than the sum of its techniques. Most students of Daito ryu would probably say the same. To truly appreciate both the similarities and the differences in the two arts, I suspect that you would need to have substantial experience in both.

Katherine

It was a shock to me when I recently had exposure to a second Daito Ryu school and found it to be very different to what I had already learnt. I guess like the various aikido schools, they can be quite different amongst themselves, yet through the different pedagogies there are similarities in principles that suddenly stood out clearly.

More recently, and starting to drift of topic, reading HIPS by Amdur I was bemused to see that Daito Ryu is arguably the creation of one man and that aikido is that of his celebrated student. Then to read that through it all, while there was respect for hierarchy and lineage, they were our there trying out everything they could get their hands on and stealing what they could to make it better.

Dialling forward to the next generation and Tohei Sensei does the something, albeit it with a shift away from martial focus in his later years.

Sagawa and Kodo, as you point out, continued to call what they did Daito-Ryu. Why, when O-Sensei did not? Could it be that though they saw themselves as modifying the teaching they received, they saw their own arts as extensions of Sokaku's art? Whereas Ueshiba saw what he was doing as something essentially different?

I recall a story that Takeda saw what Ueshiba was doing and saw that he had changed things and they came to an agreement that he would no longer call what he was doing DRAJ. I believe at the time aiki budo was the name agreed upon. The question is whether or not that difference is simply in the syllabus being taught or in how the techniques were actually being done. Hisa said that they had no issues picking up right where Ueshiba left off when Takeda took over at Asahi and we can use Shioda to rewind pre-1935 and get a good idea of how Ueshiba was teaching and doing the techniques, which incidently don't look any different than they do today. I tend to think that, as you said in your previous post, everything Ueshiba was doing was part of the DR syllabus as taught by Takeda, but Ueshiba threw away the things he felt weren't important to what he wanted to teach and Takeda could see that.

Quote:

I don't want to downplay your point that O-Sensei infused his art with his spiritual insight, by the way. I think that was certainly a key influence on what he decided to keep and what he threw away. In my view, he kept the movement that reinforced the spiritual attitude he wanted to engender: centered in the six directions, neither aggressive nor defensive, overcoming conflict by negating conflict. That became the core of his art, and he threw away extraneous techniques like a sculptor throws away all the material that doesn't contribute to the image he wants to present.

What if he simply pared down the number of techniques to the ones he felt best allowed someone to practice and devlop the thing he was really interested in, aiki? I'm not so convinced that the changes in how he did things were all spiritually motivated. My instructor was a student of his for most of the last decade of his life and that's one thing he's always stressed, O'sensei wasn't gentle with you. You were either ready or you weren't and if you came at him half-hearted, he'd probably hurt you.

Sorry for being a stickler guys, but isn't Kodo's first name "Kodo" and his last name Horikawa? So when you're mentioning him along with Sagawa, Takeda, Ueshiba..shouldn't you call him Horikawa for consistency? Sorry for being a stickler ass stickler, LOL.

Unless stated otherwise, all wisdom, follies, harshness, malice that may spring up from my writing are attributable only to me.

There are, after all, only a limited number of ways to bend human anatomy.

But I think most aikidoka would say that aikido is more than the sum of its techniques. Most students of Daito ryu would probably say the same. To truly appreciate both the similarities and the differences in the two arts, I suspect that you would need to have substantial experience in both.

Katherine

Hi Katherine.
I have found that all the jutsu people I have met had a different focus to what I call Aikido.

They were into how to harm, how to disable etc. Justified by such things as budo etc as you define it. Logically saying it's for effectiveness etc.

All sounds good except for one major difference. Aikido wasn't done for such purpose. Budo was now described as the budo of love. The purpose was now based on the spirit of loving protection.
How to do Kotegaishe for example in a way where you don't rip the tendons of the wrist of the aggressor is thus a change in technique application. The same goes for all the techniques. There's a way to do them in order to cause pain or dislocation etc. or there's the way of Aikido.

Here's the corker though. The ones that don't cause pain or dislocation etc. are actually more effective in the sense that they are harder to escape from or counter. Of course based on degree of ability.

I'm not trying to change your mind but merely showing you an alternative view, well practiced.

So my view of effectiveness being a key question is that it's a non-starter for me. More important for me is why some people don't have this as their aim.

All sounds good except for one major difference. Aikido wasn't done for such purpose. Budo was now described as the budo of love. The purpose was now based on the spirit of loving protection.
How to do Kotegaishe for example in a way where you don't rip the tendons of the wrist of the aggressor is thus a change in technique application. The same goes for all the techniques. There's a way to do them in order to cause pain or dislocation etc. or there's the way of Aikido.

Do you have anything to support your notion that O'sensei felt that what he was doing was no longer about effectiveness?

How much first hand experience do you have with kotegaeshi from non-aikido sources?

Not so, The Ki Federation of GB does not belong to the BAB, I have no idea how many others, if there are any, that do not come under the BAB umbrella.

regards

Mark

Mark

The ` Ellis Schools of Traditional Aikido ` are not members of the BAB and I know of others...I receive emails from people asking about the insurance alternative to the BAB that we detail on our www.British-Aikido.com website - we receive no commision - we offer this information as a service.

Do you have anything to support your notion that O'sensei felt that what he was doing was no longer about effectiveness?

How much first hand experience do you have with kotegaeshi from non-aikido sources?

Excuse me? I didn't say he was not about effectiveness. I said Aikido done from such a view is very effective and to me more so.

Kotegeishe is merely one example. How much experience? Much. Let's put it this way. Every non-aikido person or indeed some aikido people. That shouldn't be surprising should it for I say they should be looking after the well being of the opponent.

A new view to many. The budo of love.

Doesn't mean others are wrong for it depends on their purpose. If you can do effective technique in such a way that you at the same time are protecting the aggressor then that is I way I adhere to.

Painless nikkyo which is inescapable and yet leaves the aggressor smiling is quite an experience.

I recommend putting him on the ignore list. It will make your life much better, Jason.

I say watch this.
Then watch this.
If you think that person has something of value to impart about the art of Aikido, aikido weapons and Ki then have at it.
Knowing who you are talking to is a good thing.
Dan

All sounds good except for one major difference. Aikido wasn't done for such purpose. Budo was now described as the budo of love. The purpose was now based on the spirit of loving protection.
How to do Kotegaishe for example in a way where you don't rip the tendons of the wrist of the aggressor is thus a change in technique application. The same goes for all the techniques. There's a way to do them in order to cause pain or dislocation etc. or there's the way of Aikido.

Here's the corker though. The ones that don't cause pain or dislocation etc. are actually more effective in the sense that they are harder to escape from or counter. Of course based on degree of ability.

I did not define "effective" in my post...

One can legitimately argue about whether destroying someone's wrist is "more effective" than simply taking the person to the ground. But there are many aikidoka who are unable to do either, and justify their inability with arguments about aikido's spirituality.

If Ueshiba had not been able to "effectively" handle real attacks from advanced practititioners of other arts, no one would have cared what he had to say. He would be remembered, if at all, as a Shinto mystic, not a martial artist. He may have seen aikido as a new kind of budo, but his results were impressive against the old standards.

If you want to study Shinto mysticism, that's your choice. Nothing wrong with it. But you're not studying budo if you're not willing to confront the effectiveness question.

I had my first Ki Aikido class the other day while on a business trip.The teacher was much less experience in aikido than myself and only sees his aikido teacher rarely (due to geographical isolation). But I found myself impressed with the ability to show and demonstrate aspects of relaxation and extension that are key to all good aikido using the basic ki exercises he had learned. These are things I often have trouble communicating with beginners.

On the martial aspect of things. This particular instructor is a senior black belt in an independent modern jiu jitsu (their spelling) dojo and has quite a bit of experience in more aggressive fighting takes on the martial arts. Personally, I wouldn't want to pick a fight with him, or many of his students (most of which also come from the jiu jitsu group).

Honestly. I find all the politics and style comparisons detrimental to aikido. If we all trained together a bit more and used such occasions to exchange notes rather than worry about who's instructor was stronger and perpetuating splits and arguments between earlier generations, we would all benefit.

PS - Dan, for a guy that spends quite a bit of time trashing the videos of others, I'm starting to find your failure to show anything of your own practice on these boards cowardly.

I've taken sudafed, can't breathe, can't sleep, and my head is fuzzy. So, please allow for some sarcasm to break through.

Ellis Amdur - Anyone not know him? There's not enough room to talk about what he's done and who he's trained with.

Bill Gleason - Uh, highly respected aikido instructor. Trained in Japan with some very good people.

George Ledyard - Anyone not know him? Highly respected aikido instructor who has trained with some very good people.

Allen Beebe - Trained with Shirata. Highly respected aikido instructor but, sadly, not as well known. A diamond in hiding.

Howard Popkin & Joe Brogna - More and more people know Howard. Joe hides in the shadows, but everyone who trains with these two are enriched by the experience. Quality all around.

Chris Li - Been around awhile and I keep hearing great things about him. I hope to meet him soon. He also has some very good people around him that have also "been round the block" a time or two.

Unnamed highly ranked dan aikido instructors - You don't get that high by being stupid. I've only met a few of them and the ones I met are very good people. Highly respected aikido instructors.

My sincerest apologies to the people in the Europe. I've not met you but have heard good things about you. So, I can't say too much about you. I'm hoping to get the chance to meet everyone over there.

A very highly skilled Chen style master level teacher.

So, okay, now let's skip down to some not so highly ranked people who are still respected and skilled: Gary Welborn, Greg Steckle, Rob Liberti, Stan Baker. These are the ones who have posted here at some point. There are probably a hundred or more that haven't but could be included.

Sadly enough, the list isn't complete because I've purposefully left out a lot of people from a koryu. Sorry, I don't know enough about koryu to say anything either on the subject or the people. You wanna know, ask around. I also didn't include anyone from karate, taiji, etc. And Apologies to anyone I missed listing. Been a rough day for me.

So, what do these hundreds of people have in common? It's actually fairly easy to answer. They *never* needed a video.

Now, imagine being in a room with all these people and telling them to their face that they should have demanded a video. Who are *you* to tell aikido shihan what they should or should not have done? Let alone the other hundreds of highly ranked martial artists. I'm sick of hearing about not seeing a "video".

Maybe instead of making demands for the mountain to come to you, it might, just might be a much better choice to seek out the mountain? As your teachers, your peers, your betters, your shihan in the aikido world have done. At the very least, check out things behind the scenes like most competent budo people do before getting "foot in mouth" disease.